Meaning & Origins

From the abstract noun (via Old French, from Latin gratia), this name occurs occasionally in the 15th century, and by the 1540s was among the most popular girls' names in some parishes. It has always been particularly popular in Scotland and northern England (borne, for example, by Grace Darling, the lighthouse keeper's daughter whose heroism in 1838, saving sailors in a storm, caught the popular imagination). In more recent times it was famous as the name of the actress Grace Kelly (1928–82), who became Princess Grace of Monaco. In Ireland it is used as an Anglicized form of Gráinne.

Catalan (València) and Spanish: habitational name from any of various places called València or Valencia, principally the major city in eastern Spain, which was formerly the capital of an independent Moorish kingdom of the same name, until it was reconquered in 1239 by James I, king of the Catalan dynasty, and became part of the Crown of Aragon together with the Principality of Catalonia and the Kingdom of Aragon. The city was apparently named from an honorary title derived from Latin valens ‘brave’.